Academic Evenings

🌿The Lady in White - A Terrifying Encounter in Siparia. (1973)🌿
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Edwin George looked like a man who had already outlived himself. The years had hollowed his eyes, bent his frame, yet his words came out sharp, cutting against the silence.

When he finally began, it was to draw me into a memory from the early seventies. One of an encounter that had shaken him deeply, and left his life forever changed.
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It had been a lazy Sunday morning when Edwin set out from Couva, driving south to Siparia where Jacob’s brother was to be wed. Jacob, his best friend, had urged him not to miss it.

The wedding itself was brief, a delicate ceremony of vows and smiles, but soon the streets filled with the sound of drums, the clinking of glasses, and the laughter of neighbours sharing food. The celebration carried on long into night. Edwin stayed late, and so did Jacob, who, by the time the moon was high, swayed drunkenly against him, insisting on a lift home.

"He had a caramel-coloured girl with him," Edwin noted, "In a white dress and white hat, but at that point I didn't really see her face de way she turned her head. So I say no worries I'll carry them and leave one time."

Jacob stumbled out of the front passenger seat when they arrived at his house, disappearing into the bush at the side of the yard without a backward glance.

The woman who had accompanied him though, didn’t move.

For a moment Edwin thought maybe she was intoxicated as well, but when he asked softly if she was staying with Jacob there, her lips parted just enough for a single word to escape... "No."

"As any gentleman would do," he continued, "Since Jacob was soo drunk, I say I'll drop her home. Told her to ride in de front, and we was on our way."

Edwin drove on, following her directions from the small, precise movements of her hand. Right, then left, then into a narrow gravel road that crunched beneath his tires.

The deeper he went, the heavier the air became. Branches reached overhead, grazing the vehicle's roof. The headlights caught only the narrowing track, hemmed in by the press of forest. Edwin frowned, unease gnawing at him. The girl remained perfectly still beside him.

"Then I realised it had no more road to drive," He recalled, "I felt dotish, really dotish for takin' directions from her, blind leadin' de blind I thought. So then now I say I'll drop her back to de weddin' reception because she probably too drunk to know where she goin'."

Edwin cursed under his breath and shifted into reverse. The gear clicked into place, but the tires only spun, grinding against gravel. Sweat broke along his brow. It was then he turned to the woman. Really turned.

She was smiling.

Her lips stretched too wide, and her eyes... her eyes were nothing but black, endless pools that swallowed any light.

Edwin's chest tightened. His hands locked around the wheel. Terror held him so completely that he couldn’t even scream. He folded forward, hands gripping the wheel and closed his eyes. Instinct dragged the familiar words of Psalm twenty-three out of his throat.

“I started to say it loud,” He said, now looking straight at me, "But when I reach 'For thou art with me' somethin' slap me!”

A hard, solid blow to the crown of his head, sharp enough to daze him. For an instant his world blurred.

"When I catch myself an' spin around, de girl not in de car... p**f, just like that... gone. I remember feelin' sick, wanted to vomit, I couldn't understand what de ass was happenin', but I needed to get out of there fast."

The car, unsuprisingly, moved freely again, as though whatever gripped it had let go. Edwin drove hurriedly, back toward the reception. His hands shook on the wheel. His body felt weak.

"When I reach there now, I almost drop-down dead!" Edwin claimed, as he leaned forward on his chair, "Jacob... Jacob sit down playin' cards!"

Edwin had stammered in tears about the woman, and Jacob only blinked.

"You know Jacob never leave de reception, and nobody did know what girl I was talkin' about."

He did not sleep that night. He could not. For years afterward, the memory clung to him. That smile, those black eyes, the utter confusion in his head that followed.

He would come to believe it was no woman at all, but some devil that had tried to claim him. What saved him, he swore, was not his own strength, but by the hand of God. That slap to his head, he believed, was no malice... but mercy, shaking him awake, breaking the spell.

From then on, he surrendered himself wholly to God, leaving behind parties, drink, and the pursuit of women. Yet even as he told me this, with a voice fierce and unwavering, his hand drifted unconsciously to the crown of his head, rubbing the very spot where that unseen blow had landed.

In my opinion, the evidence was telling. It seemed clear, that while devils may be driven out in a day, uprooting a memory is a struggle that endures a lifetime.
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🌿Interview with an Obeah Man - A Brief Exploration of A Hidden Craft🌿
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📝The following article is presented as part of our ongoing cultural literacy and heritage awareness efforts.
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Obeah is often whispered about, barely spoken of openly. Yet some time ago, I got a rare opportunity to sit across from a man who admitted to practising it... a spiritual healer by his account, an obeah man by everyone else’s.

In a brief but revealing exchange, he shared with me his thoughts on the powers, myths, and realities of his practice.
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He seemed more apparition than flesh, his age carved deep into his face like scripture. Mr. W. Samuels didn’t need to move to command the room. The African garb he wore shimmered faintly in the candlelight, gold stitching twisting through deep blue fabric. His matching cap sat firm. When he looked up, his eyes seemed older than his body, yet sharp enough to slice through silence.

“Obeah,” he began, “Is deeply embedded in this country. It is much different from de old ways. Now it have a mixture of de West in it. They say is high science, simi-dimi… de real truth is about knowin' how to bend de unseen, to coax de air, de earth, and de spirit to act on your behalf.”

He explained that much of what he knew came from his aunt, the woman who raised him. She herself was a healer, carrying knowledge passed down from her grandmother who had journeyed from Jamaica. In that lineage, he traced a thread back to the African traditions that survived enslavement.

Mr. Samuels spoke of courtrooms, where even judges and magistrates, for all their robes and gavels, have not escaped the reach of obeah's hand. The same, he said, is true for doctors, businessmen, and countless others across every layer of society.

“Plenty man and woman come to me for help,” he said confidently. “Some want to win ah case. Others want deh wife back. Some want protection, or some money in deh pocket. Business people too does look for a lil’ help to up sales.”

When I pressed further, he drew my attention to the books that have for years been sold in “religious” supply stores across the country. Manuals like The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, Black and White Magic for Man and Beast, and How to Cast Spells to Put People Under Your Power. These, he noted, were not curiosities, but step-by-step guides for those drawn to its call.

Mr. Samuels leaned forward then, his voice wavering. “You see also de candle and powder? They are not for show. A candle in de shape of a man or a woman, or a heart... each have use. A jar of powder in de right colour, rubbed or blown de right way, could fix a problem you have... or it could open a door you never expect.”

There was a shadow in his words, an undertone both sobering and uneasy. He admitted that every wish granted carries a price. “It might be a sacrifice of some kind... an animal, yes. But other times, it is a trade you making with your own life. Nothin' free. Nothin' at all!”

Mr. Samuels acknowledged that such practices have long been condemned by people of varying religions, who view them as dangerous or demonic. Yet for those who continue to seek them, the attraction is not diminished.

“Let people think what they like… it was all my forefathers had when de slave master take your name, your family, your humanity… they take everything! It was ah power born out of pain.

“Faith,” he concluded, “Takes many forms. Some pray in church, some pray at a shrine, some light a candle with a name on it. In de end, all I will say is that plenty prayers in this world get answered... but not always by who you think answerin' dem.”

As I left, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it all. Unsure of the rituals, the relics, and the power he spoke of so easily. Yet as a window into a hidden tradition, it was as captivating as it was unsettling.
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🌿The Blood Witch of Piparo – Terror and Tragedy in 1930s Trinidad🌿
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Long before Dole Chadee and the enormous mud volcano eruption put Piparo on the map, the village had already seen its own share of darkness.

Randolph Gopee sat across from me one evening, tapping his foot lightly against the floor as he recalled what his late aunt once told him. A tale from her childhood in the 1930s, when Piparo was the sleepiest little village, and the rhythm of life was measured by the rise and fall of the sun.
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"It had dis small family who used to live next door to her," Randolph began, "Mungal, he wife Rookmin, and deh young daughter. Quiet people. Regular people."

But one night, the peace of the village was torn apart by screaming. When neighbours investigated, they heard that Mungal’s daughter awoke to deep, blue-black marks etched across her neck and legs.

“Is de kinna mark yuh get wen soucouyant suck yuh!" Randolph said with a wry smirk.

The village grew uneasy. Normally, in small places like Piparo, everyone knew who the village soucouyant was. But here, no one fit the bill. Not a soul.

Then there was Robert, a cocoa worker, who said he had stumbled onto a small shack deep in the estate, one he swore had never been there before. He’d worked those lands for years and knew every tree and stone, so the sight puzzled him immensely. The shack itself looked ancient, like it had been standing there a hundred years. From the shadows of the shack, Robert said a frail figure emerged.

“Ah old woman in ah white sari and a white head tie,” Randolph claimed, “Robert tell dem de ‘oman look half-dead, wit’ dry-dry wrinkle-up skin. He say she watch him like how dem lizard does watch fly. I hear Robert pick up and run like Crawford outta dey! ”

Inevitably, rumours began to spread.

A week later, another attack. This time, Mungal’s daughter ran screaming from the house, crying that something had pinned her down, biting her neck and chest.

The men decided enough was enough. Forks and cutlasses in hand, Robert and a few others marched off to “de cocoa” to find the shack and hopefully, the old mysterious woman.

But when they returned hours later, they were drunk... laughing, stumbling, and empty-handed.

"Dey say none ah dem know wat happen," Randolph recalled. "None ah dem remember why and wey deh get de rum from."

Then it was Rookmin's turn. She awoke one morning covered in bruises, her arms and chest dark with the same blue marks that plagued her daughter.

Mungal, who spent most nights drinking, planned to have a puja done to cleanse the house.

"But de night before de puja, on he way home… Mungal fall off he bike an' buss open he head. Gone an' dead easy-easy."

His funeral came and went, but the attacks continued. Rookmin and her daughter sought refuge in another villager’s home. Soon though, that woman also awoke to bite marks.

The twisted whispers scattered fast... “Dey curse.”... “Somethin' followin' dem.”... " Ah kala jadu wockin'."

"Neighbours start to wonder wat really out for that family," Randolph's voice dropping now a bit lower with each word. "By den, de old woman dem in de village say it was not no soucouyant, but ah rakta chudail... ah witch dat out for blood."

According to Randolph's aunt, those ships that came from India did not only bring human cargo. She was told that a few foreign, dark, and restless things travelled the waves as well.

As for the village, fear grew thicker than the Piparo mud.

Rookmin stopped coming outside. The villagers stopped calling her name. And then one morning, just like that, someone found her hanging from the ceiling of her house.

"And de daughter," Randolph concluded, "Dey find she in de groun' dead, de mudda poison she deh say. De 'oman look like she couldn't take it no more... and de witch get she blood in de end."

So what do you think truly destroyed that family? Was it the relentless feeding of a soucouyant, the bloodlust of a rakta chudail, or some nameless horror that mocks human reason? I certainly have no answers for this one just yet.
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🌿Maria & The Haunted Highway (A Personal Account)—Claxton Bay, 1990s.
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Terrance Ramdeen sat with me, ready to unearth a story from the early nineties that time had failed to soften.

It was a tale that bent his understanding, leaving him unsettled and searching for answers. As he recounted the events, I was drawn into a narrative where logic struggled to keep its footing
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The road stretched out before him, its black ribbon glistening faintly under the orange glow of streetlights. The air was thick with the scent of diesel and distant rain. He had just dropped his pregnant wife, and her mother at Piarco International Airport. His wife had insisted on having the baby in the United States, far from the unpredictable healthcare back home. Terrance, bound by work commitments, had stayed behind.

Now, as he drove south along the Solomon Hochoy Highway, nearing the Claxton Bay overpass, his thoughts were a swirling storm. He missed his wife already, and the emptiness of the car was just another reminder of her absence. The steady drone of his tires on the asphalt was his only companion, a monotonous melody lulling him into a trance.

Suddenly, a figure appeared out of nowhere.

A woman.

She materialised directly in front of his oncoming van, her white dress illuminated by the glare of the headlights. The fabric of her attire seemed otherworldly, its design plucked from another time.

It all happened so fast, yet in that fleeting moment, Terrance caught a glimpse of her pale, and distressingly gaunt face. There were no eyes to meet his, only empty sockets, which somehow still bore its gaze into him.

“Whaa—de!” Terrance bellowed, his heart thundered as he tried to slam the brakes.

But it was too late.

The car surged forward, straight into her.

Or so he thought.

There was no impact. Instead, she melted through the car, her hazy form brushing past him like a cool breeze.

A ragged scream tore from his throat, a sound that seemed to stall, never quite reaching anywhere. The car swerved dangerously before he regained control, his hands trembling against the wheel.

Terrance’s eyes locked onto mine, as he leaned in slightly and said, “Listen eh! I never feel so confuse in meh life. I grow up hearin’ bout dis woman on de highway lookin’ for she head, but never in meh dreams say I wudda really see she.”

He explained that he glanced in the rear-view mirror afterwards, half-expecting to see her there, but it reflected only the dark, wet highway behind him.

By the time he reached his house in Gasparillo, his clothes were drenched in cold sweat. He pulled the car into its usual spot on the roadside and sat there, his knuckles white as they gripped the steering wheel. He couldn't rid himself of the image of the woman, lingering so patiently in his mind.

“Terrance, yuh tired. Dat’s all. Yuh tired,” he muttered to himself, his voice cracking.

He opened the car door and stepped out, his legs unsteady beneath him. The streetlight outside his home shone brightly, casting a warm, reassuring light across the roadway, easing his mind. Fumbling with his house keys, he finally unlocked his house’s front door.

But something made him stop.

A wave of cold swept over him, a primal instinct clawing at his nerves, urging him to turn around.

“Bai I turn back... an' see de 'oman siddong in de car!”

His wide eyes searched mine, genuine confusion etched into his face as if hoping I could make sense of the impossible.

The woman in white sat in his backseat, her head tilted slightly to the side. Her hair obscured her face, but Terrance didn’t need to see it to feel the terror coursing through his veins. “Well bai... I call out Bhagwan, Jesus, Mary, Allah, everybody!”

Terrance inhaled violently, before twisting at pace and bolting into the house. He slammed the door shut behind him, then leaned against it as if that could keep her out. Inside, the house was dark and silent. Sleep was impossible. He sat on the edge of his couch, staring at the door, waiting for dawn to break.

"I couldn't tink," Terrance claimed, "I just had to wait it out. I never miss meh wife so much like how I miss she dat night na. If she was only dey... I sure she wudda plannasse dat 'oman wit' ah bible."

When the first rays of sunlight crept through the curtains, Terrance wasted no time. He took a taxi straight to his wife’s pastor.

“Dat car had to get bless one time, I wasn’t mixing matters. Dat devil had to go back, me eh care if it was back tuh de pit ah hell, or back tuh Claxton Bay, it had tuh go back!”

He never saw the woman again after that, but the memory loitered. Many times he would try to rationalise it, convincing himself that it was just tiredness or his imagination running wild. But deep down, he believed what he had seen was real.

The Solomon Hochoy Highway near the Claxton Bay overpass became an area he went out of his way to avoid, taking longer routes or making excuses to stay put after sundown. Even now, all these years later, he still steers clear of it.

“People guh say ah crazy, but I eh have no time for dem. Trust me, if you did see wat I see, you wasn't headin’ up dat highway anytime soon.”
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📖Further Reading:
- Trinidad Express, May 25th 2009. Article by Louis Homer.

🌿 My Uncle Was A Lagahoo: The Shape-Shifter's Secrets (Gasparillo, Trinidad - 1960s) 🌿
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Every Trini has an uncle who drinks too much, gambles too much, or disappears on moonlit nights. His did all three... and then some.

Mr. Ezekiel Barry’s story unfolded like a Jerry Springer episode written by Stephen King. There was a fever in his voice, a kind of trembling delight that bordered on hysteria.
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"As a youth growin' up in Gasparillo," Ezekiel began, "You would hear countless story 'bout jumbie, soucouyant an' douen. An' well of course, de lagahoo, my uncle Paul."

Ezekiel said it without a blink. Then he smiled, that strange little smile people have when they’ve made peace with madness.

Tall, broad, and dark as molasses, Paul was the kind of man who made men move out his way and women look twice. His bald head caught the sun, his beard thick and disciplined. Neat shirts, polished shoes, pressed trousers, he looked like a man who understood appearances... at least, during the daytime.

"Many ah night," Ezekiel confessed, "We would hear de chains draggin' up an' down dat steep Caratal road. Dem dog would be barkin' deh life out an' we had to stay inside an' say we prayers... he was wukkin', an' we know not tuh go outside when he wukkin'."

Uncle Paul, he claimed, had learned his trade from his grandfather, who’d passed on his "bad books" before dying. That grandfather, Ezekiel's great grandfather, had survived the Plein Palais Riots in Pointe-à-Pierre back in 1832. It was rumoured that he had known the old ways, the ways from Africa, when his bloodline could shift effortlessly into hyenas using magic.

In this country though, that magic seemed to have lost some of its elegance. Paul could never muster much of a change... turning half man, half jackass. A proper Trinidadian compromise.

"Long time," Ezekiel said leaning back with a wry smile, "Changin' form was a way to hunt, an' tuh escape, an' ah defense. But Paul was all about de money!"

Apparently, Uncle Paul would read three chapters from the 'bad book' and sit still. He’d wait for the itch under his skin to start. Then came the cracking bones, thickening hair, and stench of burnt oil. For seven hours, he was beast and business.

"Dat fool would drag he chain from Caratal to Lightbourne Junction," Ezekiel remembered, "Every Monday an' Thursday night. Some would pay him to frighten people out of deh house, to clear de way for thief. Pay him to destroy people garden crop, an' thief deh cattle. He used to even get pay to tickle people wife wen night come."

At that juncture, curiosity got the better of me, the same way it’s probably now gnawing at you, I bet.

Ezekiel smiled again, "You never hear bout lagahoo troublin' people in de night?'

Taken aback, I then asked a question I figured I already knew the answer to.

"Why would people pay someone to destroy crops and to do those other horrible things?"

Ezekiel looked me dead in the eye and replied with that age-old truth.

"Trinidad is small... but envy is big!"

.. and Paul had more clients than conscience.

Nobody confronted him. He had money, a certain charm, and enough children scattered around the country to populate a small village.

"Thirty-eight!" Ezekiel claimed. “And dat is de ones we could count.”

Then, as these stories go, things grew quiet. He moved to Parforce, and was not heard from in months. One morning afterwards, word came that he was found beaten to death all the way in Edward Trace, Moruga. No one claimed the body. Maybe they were afraid he’d get back up.

Ezekiel shrugged. “Not everybody will believe me,” he concluded, “But I know wat I hear dem nights, an' wat people say deh see, and all my family tell me de same ting, is no fairy tale.”

And now I'm left to wrestle with it all. Could his uncle really have conjured a force to transform his very DNA, to become the beast he already resembled inside?

It would appear, from the many testimonies I’ve heard, that the creatures walking among us might well outnumber doubles vendors. At this rate, the supernatural does not seem quite that super after all.

Furthermore, if such beings could revel in plain sight as neighbours and family, perhaps countless other deceptions go unnoticed all around us.

In light of this, I now have this growing suspicion that my last girlfriend is, in fact, a soucouyant.
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📜The Original “Badjohn” – John Archer (Trinidad, early 1900s)…

Did you know, the Trinbagonian word “badjohn” originally referred to a Bajan?

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John Archer, was a Barbadian-born ex-soldier who arrived in Trinidad in 1887. By 1902, newspapers like The Mirror had nicknamed him “Bad John,” and by the time of his death he had amassed an astonishing 119 convictions, a record few have matched.

A former member of the Second West India Regiment, Archer lived by a strict, if peculiar, code. He insisted he never stole and never lied, accepted prison sentences without protest, and famously said gaol was “just like the Queen’s Park Hotel.”

He worked on the Port of Spain wharves, often described as a very black man in ragged clothes, usually wearing a battered beaver hat decorated with a Union Jack or a likeness of the King. Despite his appearance, Archer was widely noted as well-spoken, politically informed, and dignified. A devout Methodist, he regularly attended Hanover and Tranquillity churches. He was also widely praised as a heroic lifesaver, repeatedly diving into dangerous harbour waters to rescue men and property, earning recognition from the Humane Society.

One commentator remarked that he was “always very civil and decently spoken,” recalling how John once calmly waited on the road after being held, while a policeman went to find a witness.

On the other hand, he was feared for his violence, as he fought men and women alike, willing to give blows as quickly as he received them. One altercation with James Inniss began over a plank of wood John intended to sleep on, and it escalated into repeated encounters involving fists, feet, an oar, and finally a bottle.

In another case, Charlie “Crab-Back” beat Archer, and persuaded the magistrate that a woman had paid Bad John to assault him. Crab-Back was fined, while Archer received two months hard labour for throwing a bottle.

Additionally, John openly despised the “jamettes,” whose disorderly behaviour clashed with his rigid Bajan sense of propriety. At a 1904 trial for assaulting Louisa Brown, who attempted to pick his pocket, he refused to question her, declaring bluntly in court that she was “a common prostitute,” drawing laughter from the gallery.

Over time, the term “badjohn” grew beyond John Archer himself, and its violent connotations. In panyards, stick-fighting rings, and Carnival spaces, the word came to describe fearless protectors and cultural defenders… a symbol of working-class resistance and survival. Some scholars link “badjohnism” to Caribbean identity shaped under colonial rule.

In 1916, John Archer died as he lived… diving into the harbour to retrieve a fallen bucket, striking his head on the vessel’s keel, and subsequently drowning. He left no immediate family, but a “distant relative” by the name of Catherine Rawlins quickly raised the funds to give him a proper burial at Lapeyrouse Cemetery.

So when a Trini calls someone a badjohn, remember, the word was born from a man of contradictions… who was violent, disciplined, lawless, defiant, and brave, all at once.

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📚Further Reading:

- Winer, L. (Ed.). (2009). The Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago: On historical principles. McGill-Queen’s University Press.

- Port of Spain Gazette. (1907, September 3, September 7, September 10, October 26, November 26). Port of Spain Gazette.

- https://www.bajanthings.com/how-badjohn-became-a-word/

🌿Obeah Wedding: A Personal Account (Penal, 1980s)
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📚This piece forms part of our ongoing drive to preserve Trinidad’s oral history and storytelling traditions. It does not promote or endorse harmful practices, and is intended for cultural and narrative discussion.
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Sometimes the heart knows too much.

Sometimes it knows nothing at all.

Gloria Maharaj had never asked for the burden of holding another person’s secret, but life, as she told me, had a way of handing you things you never applied for. Years later, she was ready to unburden her soul.
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On Clarke Road that morning, back in 1983, the tassa began as a faint rumble, a tremor under the skin. Then it grew louder, rolling in waves, the kind of sound that makes your heart quicken even when you don’t know why. People lined the street in their best clothes, waiting for the groom who was to arrive in a red Chevy Impala crowned with yellow flowers. The air itself was festive.

A perfect day for a wedding.

A wedding that should never have been.

Two years before, Lalita had slipped quietly into a job at a large supermarket, where Gloria also worked for some time.

"Pretty-pretty girl," Gloria admitted. "All dem woman inside dey vex. I was she only fren'."

Long hair, soft voice, that small, private smile. To the untrained eye Lalita looked shy. Withdrawn, even. But there was a sharpness about her, a hunger carefully folded beneath the surface.

Dave, the owner, noticed.

"She used to wear some short-short skirt an' Dave eye use to be poppin' out he head."

They began an affair, one of those things everyone sees, but pretends not to. And when Dave grew tired of it, as men of his kind often do, he simply walked away. Lalita begged, pleaded, wept, reasoned. Nothing moved him.

So, she reached for something else.

"Sometin' was wrong wit' she head yuh-know," Gloria explained, "She make she cousin carry she by ah obeah man in Siparia to try an' hook Dave, to get him back."

That obeah man went by the name Brother Broom, a Shango practitioner, who was said to have eyes that never quite looked where they should.

Gloria remembered the list of items with an unsettling clarity. Brother Broom had been very specific in what he demanded of Lalita. A photograph of Dave, a piece of his underwear, a spotted hen, a large bottle of white rum, and an envelope stuffed with three thousand dollars.

Strange objects to the ordinary eye, but in the dark world Lalita was stepping into, each one believed to have its purpose, each one a key to unlocking something she would never be able to close again.

The ritual was brief. The hen’s head severed in one clean stroke. Blood shaken directly onto Dave’s photo. A two-sided candle lit. Rum spat into the flame. Brother Broom rocking and trembling, chanting in a language that didn’t seem to belong. Lalita sat there, hands clasped, breath shallow, as something unseen turned the air thick.

He told her it would take three days… allegedly, it worked that same night.

Dave turned up. Apologetic. Overwhelmed. Lost.

Within a month he left his wife, abandoned his children, and placed Lalita in an apartment in Gulf View with a Mercedes she had no business driving.

"Everybody in wuck say he gone mad," Gloria remembered, as she drew a quiet sip from her cup. "But nobody did know de truth... only me."

By June the next year, they were to be married.

Which is why, on the wedding day, the procession inched down Clarke Road with laughter, tassa, chatter, and dancers already shifting their waists in anticipation of the festivities to come.

But the only movement that mattered was the one occurring in Dave’s mind... which all started earlier that morning.

Dave had run into his uncle, Govind, a newly "saved" man who carried his bible like a shield against a world he no longer trusted. Uncle Govind had insisted on praying for Dave before the wedding, laying one trembling hand on his nephew’s head and whispering a blessing meant for protection, prosperity, happiness.

A simple prayer.

Nothing more.

Yet when the wedding car reached Clarke Road junction, Dave suddenly exhaled sharply… as if waking from a long, troubling dream. Clarity hit him like cold water. His chest tightened.

After a few minutes of silence, he ordered the driver to stop.

Then to turn around.

The long line of vehicles behind him je**ed in confusion. The tassa group on a truck's tray paused mid-beat. Someone cursed. But Dave did not look back.

At Lalita’s house the crowd waited, puzzled, people murmuring, children running about, dancers adjusting their clothes every other second. Minutes slipped into a half-hour. Then an hour. No groom. No music. No explanation.

When the truth reached the bride, she erupted… rage, disbelief, tears that didn’t soften but burned. She demanded someone take her to find Dave, but no one moved. They only held her, speaking gentle words that skidded uselessly across her fury.

Gloria's voice dropped.

"It was Govind," Gloria suspects, "Govind and he bible. Yuh see how prayer does work?"

A prayer that seemingly shattered whatever chain Brother Broom's ritual had hooked into him.

Later, when they managed to calm Lalita and lead her to her room, she scuttled into the bathroom. The door barely closed before they heard the bottle fall.

By the time they forced their way in, she had swallowed enough of a chemical to leave her body fighting a battle her mind had already surrendered. Her neck was swollen grotesquely, her breath rattling like something trapped. Still wrapped in her burgundy sari, she arrived at the hospital unconscious, descended into a coma, and before long, the world let her go for good.

"She get wuh she pay for," Gloria concluded, "I did sorry for she eh, but yuh cyah deal up wit' devil an' doh expect it to come back on you... may not be today, not tomorrow, but it muss come back!"

"What happened to Dave?" I asked, searching for some semblance of closure to the story.

Gloria looked at me long and hard, before smiling.

"Dave live ah nice life. He wife take him back, an' he give he chiren de business. He must be somewhere abroad watchin' horse racin' all now."

A happy ending... for Dave at least.

What are we to take from this? Many obvious things I would say. Furthermore, it does echo the old wisdom hinted by the Mighty Sparrow is his timeless classic... obeah wedding bells, most certainly, do not chime.

So, keep your head up. It might not be that you're "dotish" at all... maybe somebody simply "wuck a lil’ obeah on yuh."

And perhaps it would be wise to now say a word of prayer before you go on that date.
Say two if they're from South.
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Have you heard of any similar stories? Share your thoughts in the comments below👇🏽